Mims Davies is pleased to share the UK government has announced its support for measures designed to protect the world’s ocean and improve the conservation of marine biodiversity.
Ahead of International Seabed Authority negotiations starting on Monday 30th October, and a month ahead of COP28, the UK government has announced its support for a moratorium on the granting of exploitation licences for deep sea mining projects – which involve the extraction of minerals such as precious metals, copper and cobalt – by the International Seabed Authority.
This means the UK will not sponsor or support the issuing of any such licences until sufficient scientific evidence is available to assess the potential impact of deep sea mining activities on marine ecosystems and strong, enforceable environmental regulations, standards and guidelines have been developed and adopted by the International Seabed Authority.
The UK is an international advocate for the highest possible environmental standards and has been pushing the International Seabed Authority to develop strong and enforceable environmental regulations, standards and guidelines on deep sea mining.
To support this, a new UK-based environmental science expert network on deep sea mining will be launched to gather scientific data and increase the effective use of the UK’s world-class research through cross-disciplinary learning. This will build on the independent evidence review on deep sea mining carried out by independent experts following a government commission in 2022.
The network will bring together the UK’s environmental science expertise to help fill the current evidence gaps on the environmental impact of deep sea mining and share internationally.
What is different in this announcement from your previous policy towards deep sea mining?
The Government is announcing our support for moratorium on deep sea mining in the context of the International Seabed Authority. Deep sea mining does not currently take place in international waters but we recognise the growing pressure to extract deep-sea resources and are concerned about the potential impacts of mining activities on the fragile marine environment. We are therefore taking a precautionary approach.
This is a clarification that the UK position is in line with that of many of our partner countries who have called for a moratorium or precautionary pause